Rough uncomfortable night

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Fri 29 Oct 2010 15:24
Location: Bahia Ballena 9:43.388N 85:00.462W
The wind continued to build to 20 knots, and sometime 30s but not bad, but the seas continued to grow more and more mixed, and short perios 5 to 6 seconds, not caused from the wind as much as swell pulse from two directions. We rolled back and forth, but we sialed at 8 to 8.5 knots under a reefed genne and main for most of the night covering the 110 nM in good time. Sunsation had left 3 hours before us and Wahalille had left 6 hours before and we all ended up coming in to the destination bay at the same time.
But even for Sunsation a large Caterman they found the going bouncy , while not dangerouse it is just not cruising, which you are meant to get weather windows, but this area (Nicoya outside) has a reputation for short waves. Tracy and I did not get much sleep, but the boys did well and slept well.
We continued to dodge and encounter thunderstoorms, with a strange situation of a moon out, patches of moon light and stars, yet in three different areas you will see great billowing black clouds that show rain on the radar and lightening flashes about us. We did not dodge all the rain we had some very big ones that over ran us, and we had one big one sit parrelal with us for 40 miles as we both came down the coast together.
We arrived at 4 am and entered the bay under instruments (which my depth guage is not dependable so I was using Sunsation to determine that), and radar, it is a very large shallow bay, with some villages and plantations around the side, we found 28 feet of water and dropped anchor. Then hit the sack for 3 hours until the boys decided we needed to be awake.
Last night should be our last night sail in Central America we should be able to do the next 5 weeks in day sails.

Stay tuned as we explore this bay, initially there is a bit of beach break for Sean.